Author of Healing Maddie Brees

Month: January 2017

She has a full day of work ahead and a forty-five minute commute. Her three children will be at school all day, after which two will have music lessons and one hockey practice. Her husband is out of town on business all week. She posts a picture of her alarm clock: 5:45 AM, and the … More Perspective

Silence, maybe. Space to write. A quiet column of time in which to give audience to all that’s in one’s head. That might be what a writer wants. But that’s not always true. Having made room for these things precisely, a writer can find that they are absolutely not what she wants. She can find … More What Every Writer Wants

Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. I started in earnest on a new book today. It wasn’t one I’ve been meaning to write. For some time now, the list of what I’ve been meaning … More New for a New Year

Above the sofa in my living room is a painting that once belonged to my grandfather. A picture of the sea: everywhere water. Peaks and troughs fill more than two-thirds of the frame, all done in deep greenish blues with paler blues for foam and spray. Whitecaps curl and spread on a crest far off … More No Boat

Up North, they make fun of the way Southerners handle the snow. They say we can’t handle it–which definitely seems true. Our whole world shuts down: this is our third morning and I haven’t seen a soul outdoors yet today because it’s 8 degrees, because everything froze again last night and still is frozen, because … More Snow